


Fire Lily

by Kayasurin



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Choices, Family, Mothers and Daughters, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-15 01:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayasurin/pseuds/Kayasurin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Princess Rin lives with her Uncle Zuko and Aunt Katara and never thinks about her mother at all. Until she does. One-shot</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire Lily

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WiseAbsol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WiseAbsol/gifts).



** Fire Orchid **

Princess Rin is ten years old, and lives in the Palace with her Uncle Zuko and Aunt Katara. Once a year, they all pack themselves up and travel to the peace summit where she spends time with her Uncle Sokka and Aunt Suki and their children, and with Uncle Aang, and Aunt Mai and Aunt Ty Lee, and Aunt Toph and whatever boy Aunt Toph is terrifying this year.

She is a firebender, and her flames burn blue. She's not sure how she feels about it- Aunt Katara and Uncle Zuko both tell her it means she's a powerful young bender- but everyone looks at her with such _fear_ when they find out. So she doesn't bend much.

She is what people call a prodigy, and that sets her apart. The other children say she cheats, because she doesn't really need to _learn_ ; show her once and she never forgets it. Teacher's pet, show off... She'd rather spend time in the garden. Plants grow or they don't, there's no special talent necessary.

Uncle Zuko is the Fire Lord, and he's busy a lot. But never too busy not to spend time with her. Usually in the garden with the turtle-duck pond, tossing bread into the water and talking quietly about her lessons and her thoughts and what's new in their lives. Sometimes he'll talk to her about her mother- but never anything recent.

Aunt Katara is the Fire Lady, and she's busy a lot too. But never too busy not to help Rin with her bending. Rin likes taking forms from other nations and using it for firebending; that's harder, so it actually feels like she's doing something. Dancing, instead of walking. Aunt Katara never talks about Rin's mother; she'll look away, mouth tight, and say something like "she was good at what she did" or "she would be proud of your bending" but that's not _talking_ , really.

Princess Rin is ten years old and she's never even seen her mother.

_Everyone_ knows she's a bastard. Princess Azula, Fire Lord Azula, who didn't want to marry and went away somewhere, who had a child out of marriage and didn't want the child after.

Rin's not as bothered about it as she probably should be. She has Uncle Zuko and Aunt Katara, Grandpa Iroh and Grandma Kana, and they're better than a mother who breaks rules and give up their children.

But it's when a boy in her class pushes her down and says she's not worth the time the teachers give her...

Fire Lord Zuko (and it's hard to remember he's Uncle Zuko, when he's like this) has her brought to his office later.

He's in his robes, red and gold and black, hair done up in a topknot and scar on full display. For once, Rin looks at the scar and feels sick, because she knows what the scent of burning flesh is like.

Fire Lord Zuko stares at her, until she's squirming, then he reaches up and takes his crown off. With that, he's suddenly Uncle Zuko, all dressed up but familiar.

"So," he says. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Rin scrunches her face up, but then she's bawling, and Uncle Zuko pulls her close and she's weeping into his shoulder, into expensive water-silk and gold dragons curling over his shoulder. "He said- he said-" she manages, but then she's crying too hard and there's no words, not really.

Only after she calms down does she manage to tell him what the boy said. That she wasn't worth the teachers' time. That she was a show off and a stuck up. That she was just as bad as her mother and she'd cause just as much trouble and it was only a matter of time before she went traitor, just like Azula.

And it's that, really, that set her off. Because it's one thing to know her mother was Uncle Zuko's sister, and Uncle Zuko only _has_ one sister. It's another to put together "Uncle Zuko's sister" with "Crazy Fire Lord Azula" who tried to kill the Avatar and is locked up in a mental hospital.

Uncle Zuko sighs. "You burned him," he says.

"Not much," she mumbles, but that doesn't make it better. Doesn't make it right. "I'm sorry." That might help. A little.

"Are you?" Uncle Zuko frowns and pulls her back, so they can look at each other. "Are you sorry you hurt him, or sorry you're in trouble?"

Rin thinks about it. "Both," she decides. "I didn't like what he said, and I don't like getting punished, but I didn't like when he screamed, either."

Uncle Zuko nods, and cuddles her close again. "It's okay to be angry," he says. "There are things that will always make you angry. But if you react like that, even if you burn the person, they're the ones with the power. Do you understand?"

Maybe. She thinks it's a bit like Uncle Aang's airbending. It's reactive, so if you don't attack him, he can't turn around and use your attack against you. She nods.

"Rin. You can't change who your mother is. You can change your reaction."

Huh? She scrunches up her nose and looks at him. From this angle she can only see his jawline.

"You know that I'm Fire Lord Ozai's son?" Uncle Zuko asks.

Rin nods. Obviously. Otherwise Uncle Zuko couldn't be Fire Lord himself. It's a line, and only the family of the Fire Lord can be next.

Except her. Because her mother broke the rules and had a baby without a father.

"Remember your history? I know you learnt about him."

And Rin thinks about it. About Fire Lord Ozai. About the man who ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, not all of them the enemy. About the man who ordered over half his nobles taken off and killed because he didn't like them, because they disagreed or were related too closely to his family and could've been in line. About the man who burned Uncle Zuko's face.

"He wasn't very nice," she whispers.

"People hold what he did against me, too," Uncle Zuko tells her. "I used to get angry. Now all I do is promise myself I won't make his mistakes."

Rin chews on her bottom lip, and her governess would chid her for it, but Uncle Zuko doesn't care. She overheard him say, once, that he'd lived as a refugee and a chewed lip wasn't the end of the world. She's not sure how the two are related. Maybe he'll explain when she's older.

"What did Azu... What did Mother do?" she asks.

Uncle Zuko smiles, very sad, and starts talking.

And Rin listens, because she is a princess and he is her Fire Lord, because he is her Uncle and she loves him.

But mostly because she does, in fact, want to know about her mother, who was powerful and broken and forgot how to love, and did horrible things and did want Rin, but knew she wouldn't be a good mother.

"She didn't always know who she was, or who I was, or where we were," Uncle Zuko tells her. "But she knew who you were. And she told me that she didn't want to hurt you, and that you deserved better, and she trusted me with what was most precious to you. She loved you. So she gave you up."

Rin asks, a few weeks later, if Uncle Zuko will take her to see her mother.

She won't end up like Azula. But she thinks, if she can be as good through her life as her mother was in that one moment...

That's something to work towards.

And she apologizes to the boy she burned. He gives her a handful of fire lilies, roots still trailing dirt, from his family gardens.

She thinks she'd rather be his friend, and sets out to try to do just that.

**Author's Note:**

> This was prompted by a friend and written in under fifteen minutes. It might not make a lot of sense, but I didn't get a full on story from the prompt. If there's any more, I'll put it here, but I wouldn't think so.


End file.
